


You can dance right through your life

by lorax



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Dancing, M/M, Strippers & Strip Clubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:05:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorax/pseuds/lorax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Who Let the Dogs Out?" is a perfectly acceptable stripping soundtrack, thank you very much Aisha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You can dance right through your life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/gifts).



> Title taken from [What a feeling](http://youtu.be/ILWSp0m9G2U). Thank you to (Betas redacted) for the edits, all remaining errors are my own.

**You can dance right through your life**

"Pooch? Clay? Coug? Anyone there? Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Kegel. Masonry. Avocado?"

"Those are just words. You're on my comms now, saying words for no reason," Pooch's voice crackled slightly over the earpiece and Jensen tweaked some settings to smooth it out. Despite the feedback, he sounded distinctly annoyed. "This is what hell sounds like, isn't it? Just you, talking endlessly."

"Well, if you'd answer me, I could use real words! It's been seventeen hours, Pooch. SEVENTEEN. My ass is becoming one with this rock, and I'm so far beyond bored my boredom has, itself, become bored. It's a singularity of boredom."

Pooch's answer was decidedly profane, but cut off midway when Clay's voice drawled on top of him. "You know, boys, the point of radio silence is so no one talks, and no one hears. No names over the comms."

"The cat is unbagged on the names. Your distinctive, dulcet tones are well known, Colonel. And that's a big negative, anyway. There are exactly zero people who can hack onto this channel, which I know, because I made it."

"Yeah, but someone could be standing behind you while you run your mouth." Aisha's voice came from directly behind him, not through his earpiece, and Jensen only half managed to bite back an undignified yelp. There was something unnatural about Aisha's ability to sneak up on him. He had _excellent_ peripheral vision and a highly toned sense of self preservation that let him know when someone was close enough to kill him. The only other person who ever managed was Cougar, and that was different. Cougar had a much higher level of Jensen tolerance and was therefore less likely to shoot him. Probably.

It was about equally attractive on either of them, though. Jensen lived in daily fear of the state of his balls in conjecture with Aisha's steel toed boots and/or gun, but that didn't stop him from admiring her at the same time. Covertly. When Clay wasn't around.

"Status?" Clay asked, sharp in response to Jensen's swallowed yelp.

"He's good. He was just too busy bitching to see me coming. Pack it in, boys. I know where they're going, and we're not going to tag 'em here," Aisha said, over the comms this time. She peered over Jensen's shoulder and handed him a flash drive full of surveillance photos. He copied them over and stored the drive, just in case, then started breaking down his gear to go. 

"So what now?" he asked. He turned around to find Aisha staring at him speculatively. Jensen was _uncomfortable_ with that look on her face. "What? Is there a scorpion on my head? Did you just decide to kill me?"

"I decided to kill you months ago, I just haven't gotten around to it yet," she joked. Or he hoped she was joking. This was the problem with a team full of people who primarily communicated via threats of physical violence, you could never be sure when they meant it until someone was kicking your ass. Aisha grinned, cocking her hip and tilting her head, eyes running over him in a way that would have been flattering, if it wasn't so deeply worrying. "I think I've got us a way in," she told them.

Jensen instinctively shielded his dick with his laptop, and then changed his mind and tucked the laptop under his arm to shield with his hand instead. He could work without a hand, but if he lost the data on the laptop before he could get to civilization and upload it, Clay would kill him. "I need an adult and distracting cover fire," he said emphatically. "I think something terrible is about to happen."  
~~

"Bachelorette party," Clay repeated, deadpan.

"We know she's in on half the operation. She'll know where at least one of the safe houses is, and failing that -- where her man's brother is staying. We put Jensen in, let him lap dance some secrets out of drunk women, and then we can get to the brother and he can take us to the actual bad guy. Once we convince him we're not a hit team taking him out." Aisha shrugged. "You got a better idea?"

"Why Jensen?" Clay asked.

"Have you ever seen Jensen with women?" Aisha gave Pooch a pointedly raised eyebrow. "I mean a real woman," Pooch amended. Cougar snorted and Pooch pushed on. "I mean _another_ woman. It's like a train wreck. You can't do anything but watch it happen, and know that when it's over, there will be bodies everywhere and no one's getting laid."

"That's the worst phrasing I've ever heard," Jensen muttered, from where his head was firmly pressed to the table. He refused to lift it on the plausible theory that he would then have to watch the others laugh at him.

"My point is, if we want to seduce anyone out of anything, Jensen might not be our A-game," Pooch insisted.

"That you volunteering, Sergeant?" Clay asked.

"I'm a married man, Colonel. With a beautiful wife and child and a healthy and righteous fear of what happens when Jensen opens his giant trap and tells her I was stripping for an op."

"Right, so that leaves you out. Clay doesn't dance and I don't have a dick. That leaves two. Which one do _you_ see stripping?" Aisha asked. "Unless you want to step up, Cougar?"

"Jensen can do it," Cougar answered.

"Thanks, buddy. When the technological revolution happens and the killer robots are coming for you all, I'll remember this and let you burn," Jensen told them.

"No. I mean you _can do it_ ," Cougar said again, the inflection changing slightly. Jensen turned his head against the table just enough to see Cougar with one eye. From the angle he was at, he mostly just saw hat. "You like to dance," he added with a shrug of hat. Or Jensen assumed that's what he was doing.

"To all of our misfortune," Clay muttered. "Jensen, you up for this?"

"No?"

"Let me rephrase. What would it take for you to successfully manage this op?"

"Seven bottles of tequila, a thank you kiss from every one of you bastards, and a firm promise that there will be no photographic evidence." Jensen sat up finally, spine twinging a protest at him for the last half hour spent face-planted on a table.

Clay smirked slightly. "You get a bottle of whiskey afterward, Cougar won't shoot you, and no video," he said.

Jensen sighed, resigning himself to his fate. He would suspect Aisha had some kind of access to past history he had spent many, many hours keeping firmly contained and un-google-able, but he thought she just had unnatural aptitude for tactical decisions that involved making other people (mostly Jensen and Clay) miserable. "Check, sir." He shot Pooch a look. "For the record -- these hips are a registered _lethal weapon_. Those ladies won't know what hit them. They'll be forever ruined for other strippers."

Pooch stood, slapping Jensen unnecessarily hard on the shoulder. "Sure they will. Right after they're done crying that they might have had a lapful of the Pooch instead."

"So we bribe the club owner to put Jensen on the roster for a few days. And hope he can talk his way into intel? That the whole plan?" Clay asked.

"I've always got a backup," Aisha said. She grinned. "But first, shopping. C'mon, J, we'll get you something pretty."

She looked _gleeful_. Jensen would have said something about women and shopping, but he valued living, and usually he was a lot more enthusiastic about shopping than Aisha, unless they were shopping for weapons. (Like she needed more.) "There is no way you're coming. You'd enjoy it too much."

"No man out alone, Jensen. Max and his new partner are still out there, somewhere," Clay reminded him.

In the background, Jensen heard Pooch on the phone, cackling to Jolene about something. Jensen could guess what it was. "Cougar can go with me," he blurted.

Cougar's eyebrows climbed to his hat line, and Jensen suddenly regretted all of his life choices anew. But he shrugged wordlessly. Clay and Cougar traded a look that communicated things Jensen couldn't interpret. (Why couldn't people just use their words? Jensen wouldn't have to use so many if everyone else communicated more effectively. In theory. Okay he'd probably still use more, but still.)

Whatever it was, Clay shook his head, smiling again. "Fine. Take Cougar."

Aisha wordlessly pushed her laptop at Jensen, showing him the homepage of a local store. She'd already _put things on hold_. "You are enjoying this way too much. Admit it, you just want to get a look at me in something skimpy, don't you sister?"

Her eyes rolled but she smirked. It was eerily similar to Clay's smirk. "Check the tabs. I like the UK flag."

"Hey, I am All American. If I'm flashing the goods in a flag, it will be Old Glory," Jensen protested. He clicked on the first tab. "Oh my god, there is something _wrong_ with you." Aisha started to laugh and Cougar leaned in to look over his shoulder. Jensen hurriedly shut the laptop.  
~~

"This is horrifying," Jensen said, peering down in amazement at the rack of colorful, spangled, and deeply skimpy costumes in front of him.

The shopgirl was tiny and plump, with a heroically impressive chest, spiked purple hair, and a deeply bored expression. She'd shown him the tear-away clothes and then what went under the tear-away clothes. Her face brightened when she saw what he was looking at. Jensen wondered what the odds were of getting her number, and then thought better of it. "I know. Seriously, that's not even the best one," she said. She took the elephant-shaped thong from him and then turned the rack, pulling out a penguin, and then an alligator. Jensen tried not to choke. "Right? Why would you want your wang to look like an alligator? I mean, what's the come on? _I'll take a bite out of you, baby_?" She held the alligator up to her crotch and wriggled a little, fingers tucked into the alligator's head to make it move. 

Cougar was, thankfully, loitering across the shop, paging through the DVD collection on display. Jensen had _desperately_ wanted to make a joke about the _Naughty Nurses 6_ DVD he'd seen Cougar pick up, but was aware that his ice was much too thin to be jumping up and down on. Jensen rubbed at his temple absently. "Yeah, I'm thinking less animal shaped. I want to be the only animal in the equation, you know?"

The girl (her name tag read _Chastity_ , but Jensen thought that was much too funny to be real, considering her job), pursed her lips. "First time dancing?" she guessed.

"Uh, not really," Jensen hedged.

She shrugged. "Do you want to go theme? What's your act like? You could go for a big devil act, tail and horns and all." She held up a tiny red devil thong. It reminded Jensen of cartoons he saw as a kid. She took in his face and rolled her eyes. She darted over to the next rack with a deeply attractive bounce and then was holding up a leather ... harness ... thing. There were chains involved. Jensen was instantly worried about chafing and pinching. She took another look and sighed. "Dude, you're too picky. Go online, more variety. How about a classic?" She held up a little tuxedo outfit, complete with cuffs.

"Yes. That," Jensen agreed instantly, snatching it from her hands. It was almost familiar, and he could deal with that, provided no one-

"Jen?"

The voice froze Jensen's blood. He turned slowly to find his sister standing there. In decidedly _the wrong city_. "Kimmie? What are you doing in Miami?"

"In town for a friend's wedding." Kim stared. There were three other women behind her, two of them not-so-subtly checking out Cougar, and the third even less subtly checking out Not-Chastity. "Jen, what are _you_ doing here? Are you dancing again? Jen, honey, did something happen? Do you need money?"

Not-Chastity looked between them, clearly finding his misery more entertaining than her job had been ten minutes ago -- which just put her on the side of the rest of his team. Jensen only had an outgoing earpiece on him, so they were probably listening in right now. Pooch had probably fallen out of his chair.

Pooch was _an asshole_. Kim looked worried. "You could have come to me, you know-"

"No! No, it's fine, it's not. Uh, it's recreational, not professional. You know, spice up the sex life, pick up some cash in the process. I'm just visiting, we thought it would be fun. Work 'em up on stage, wow 'em in the sack, that kind of thing," Jensen babbled. Chastity snorted, and Jensen shot her a look. She grinned back and then made her way back to the counter to help the other customers.

Jensen shot Cougar a quick, desperate look, hoping against hope he'd gone off comms, had no eyes, and hadn't noticed the conversation happening. No such luck, since Cougar looked right back at him, lifting one eyebrow. Kim followed his gaze and then snorted. "Oh. Well he is your type, isn't he?"

"What? No? I mean yes, but no." Jensen didn't have a type, he thought. He liked women of all shapes and sizes and levels of lethality. Men he liked ... actually yes, he may have a type, but why did his sister know that?

"Why didn't you tell me you were dating someone? Who is he? What does he do? He's not making you dance, is he? Because I-"

"Jake wanted to," Cougar said. In the middle of a sex shop with watching women and Jensen's well-meaning, but bull-stubborn sister harping at him, Cougar _still_ managed to sneak up on Jensen. He slid his arm around Jensen's waist and pulled him in closer. "He wanted to tell you, too, but I wanted to wait. Things are still new," he offered. "You must be Kim, _sí_? He's told me a lot about you." He offered his hand. "I'm Carlos."

Kim looked suspiciously between them, but took his hand. "Carlos -- are you one of his team that he brought to Hannah's soccer match when he got thrown out?"

Cougar smiled sheepishly. "We did try to stop him from running his mouth."

"There's an uphill battle," Kim said. She darted a glance again. Cougar's arm was still around Jensen's waist, and it was warm and strong and Jensen thought this was the most he'd ever heard him speak in one go. He'd never noticed how nice Cougar smelled (when he wasn't mid-op-gone-bad and sweaty and six days out without a shower, because none of them could possibly smell good then). This was seriously the worst idea he'd ever been subjected to. "So ... you were friends, and now you're dating? And it's new? You need that much spice this early on? Things going that badly?"

Cougar grinned. It was ridiculously attractive. The two women were _still_ checking him out, now they just looked disappointed about it. "Cakes can be good already, but a little icing never hurts."

"Uh huh." Kimmie shook her head. "I've got to buy comically oversized dildos and edible underwear, and then get to the rehearsal dinner." She stopped and then amended. "For the bride, Rosa, not for me. I have dildos. At home. Not that you need to know that. I don't date much, so-"

Sometimes it was painfully obvious that she and Jensen were related. "I'm going to have to cut you off there, okay? For both of our dignities."

"Like you have any. Little shit," Kimmie said affectionately, and then hugged him hard. "Lunch? I'm in town until Thursday. I want to see you. Both of you."

"We can't, we-"

"We'll be there," Cougar said.

Jensen felt betrayed on a deep, _cellular_ level, but Kim smiled. "I'll text you the place. And I'm buying," she told him. She gave Cougar a long look and then patted Jensen's arm. "Not bad. Better than that girl in high school. Or that guy you brought home from college."

"He was my _roommate_."

"Who you _boned_ ," Kim argued.

Jensen had no effective way to refute that, because the guy really had been kind of a dick but there actually had been a lot of boning anyway, because the guy _was_ a dick, but his _actual_ dick had worked great and Jensen had very little resistance to offered orgasms.

Cougar stayed tucked in uncomfortably close to Jensen's side, arm around him, or hand at the small of his back as Jensen miserably found a tear-away tux to go with his itty-bitty tuxspeedo. He even stayed there after Kimmie and her trio of women paid for their sexy gag gifts and left, which Jensen thought was just unfair of the universe in general and Cougar in particular. "Thanks for that, now I have to convince her we left town early," he muttered.

Cougar stopped, looking at him. His hat was somehow set at the specific angle that informed Jensen he had just said something incredibly stupid. Jensen had no idea what that was, so he just stared back until Cougar cleared his throat. "She is in town for _Rosa's wedding_. She's going to know you're still in town."

Jensen took a second to process that. Because he was a genius and a man of many, many talents, but anticipating his sister's presence at his not-so-triumphant return to the dancing stage was outside of anyone's expectations. He caught on, finally, and his fingers crinkled in the scratchy fabric of the tear-away pants. "Son of a _bitch_."  
~~

Clay had acquired a giant mirror from somewhere. Jensen hadn't asked because whenever Clay magically procured something, there was a pretty high chance Jensen's life was safer not knowing how he got it. There were no actual rooms in the safehouse. (They were too classy for privacy, Jensen guessed.) So Jensen just made noise about practicing his sexy moves until everyone cleared out. Excepting Aisha, who plopped herself down on a chair, waved a few dollar bills at him, and waited for him to entertain her. He thought about walking out, but Jensen _did_ actually need to not suck for this to work, which meant practice was a sad and deeply frustrating necessity.

What actually happened was Jensen spent fifteen minutes arguing with her about a song ( _No, Jensen, you're not going to make anyone wet dancing to "Who Let the Dogs Out?"_ , she was so full of judgment), before settling on "Fever", because Jensen was classic and Aisha shot down everything else. And then another fifteen minutes before he could get himself to do anything other than awkwardly bounce around.

When he'd done this in school Jake had been good at it. He'd gotten off on the money more than the actual dancing, but there had been good nights when the attention and the dollars stuffed into his thong had made him pretty hot. But he'd never had to do it for someone he knew, and it'd been years anyway. Jensen wasn't the best soldier -- he forgot to bring his gun, he got distracted on duty, he was less observant than some freakish people he worked with who could walk away from a tree and tell you how many leaves it had after a two second look. But he was pretty naturally athletic and liked to think of himself as graceful ... sometimes. Occasionally. He was occasionally a man of grace. But shaking his ass at a volatile and snide colleague with zero interest in said ass was different.

Aisha made a frustrated noise and finally got up, spinning Jensen to face her. "Come on, even you can do better than this." Her voice was brusque, but her hands were careful. Aisha _was_ graceful and mind-bogglingly fluid and she started to dance with him, coaxing him to move. It was easier with a partner, and when she stepped away, he felt more confident, old sway of his hips and curve of his body coming back to him. Jensen started to remember why he'd liked this to begin with, back in the day. "Not bad," she decided finally. The smile she gave him was wide and lovely and Jensen briefly wondered why his dick was chiefly interested in deeply dangerous people.

She disappeared out the door and Jensen settled in to practice with the tear-away clothes. He didn't see Cougar come in, or hear him, Jensen just did a complicated spin and caught Cougar in the mirror, leaning against the wall and watching, head tipped down and arms crossed over his chest. Jensen didn't think he could be blamed for pretending not to see and dancing for another minute, heart picking up from its already fast beat.

Yeah. He had a problematic hard-on for people who could kick his ass. He just didn't know what to do when he started to get the idea it might not be entirely one-sided.

The song wound down again and Jensen stopped, catching his breath and turning to look at Cougar, who hadn't moved. His dark eyes met Jensen's though, and he smiled slightly. "You're good," he said.

"Thanks," Jensen offered awkwardly. He stopped his tongue from flapping on about his irresistible sexiness, because usually it sounded like nonsense, but at the moment, it might sound like something else. He had not run the variables on that to actually have any kind of prepared scenario in mind.

Cougar pushed off from the wall to stand straight. "You used to dance?"

"In college, for a while," Jensen admitted.

"You had to?" Cougar asked.

Jensen was puzzled, but after a second, he figured out the tilted head and lowered eyebrows were maybe _concerned_. "No. I mean I could have worked as a waiter. I wasn't sordidly pushed into the glamorous life of a stripper. My life is not _Showgirls_ ... actually technically in _Showgirls_ she was pretty into the career option too, and-" he stopped, because the flat eyebrows lifted and it cut off Jensen's already weak chain of thought. "I made better money. Tech is expensive when shady military types aren't bankrolling you and you're in school?" That little moment of concern for him made Jensen feel strange, and after a second he added. "Plus I kind of liked it. I mean I don't like it now, because it's causing extreme amounts of embarrassment to my person and amusement to the persons of Pooch and Aisha, which is always a downside. But in general. I liked it okay."

Cougar's mouth quirked and Jensen smiled back. He felt off balance and a little like he wanted to run out of the room screaming and a little like he wanted to do something that he was thinking of as _the opposite of running_ , even though that made less sense than Jake's brain usually made. Which was saying something. "So you were a pole dancer," Cougar said quietly.

"Hey, there was no poles. I mean there was a pole, but only the kind that's attached to the dancer. By which I mean the dick."

Cougar's expression (what minute parts of his expression that did actually express things) said that he hadn't needed the clarification. But his mouth pulled down, and for a second Jensen thought he looked something that might be _disappointed_. "There could have been a pole," he blurted. "There could be. I'm saying I could learn pole. I'm flexible and brilliant and I could work a pole. That's something I could learn."

Cougar's eyes were dark and they barely blinked. "You could."

Jensen wanted ... actually he wasn't clear on what he wanted. Just that he wanted, and it was a problem. "I need to piss," he announced, and then bolted from the room. Because that's the level of speed his processors worked at when it came to crunching personal life data. Dammit.  
~~

Jensen fidgeted, trying to find an angle where the string that made up his underwear wasn't trying to burrow south for the winter. He failed and pushed his ass up out of the seat to adjust. "Would you _stop that_?" Pooch snapped.

"You try sitting in this thing and not getting twitchy," Jensen said. "I'm the one who has to wave my ass at horny bachelorettes, you could try having sympathy."

"I want you to think about what you just said and why I wouldn't be all that sympathetic," Pooch told him, eyes rolling.

Jensen thought about it and then grimaced. Fine. They'd gotten intel of most of the wedding party (too late for Jake to have pointed out that his _sister_ was in the bridal party), and a pretty large percentage of the invited women were hot. There should probably be worse fates then dancing with his junk in their faces, even if you took into account the fact that Aisha and Clay would be watching and Pooch would probably be watching they video feed they were pretending they wouldn't be taking, and laughing at it with Jolene.

But Cougar was also watching and Jensen was feeling complicated on the matter.

"Hey, so, my sister thinks I'm doing Cougar, and it occurs to me that I might actually be into doing Cougar, and he is possibly not altogether repelled by the idea because-"

"Are you having this conversation with me? Why are you having this conversation with me?" Pooch broke in.

"Because you're driving me to my naked booty dance session, and Clay made me go in at the last minute, so I can't even wait to change. So you should have to suffer too. Besides, who else am I going to ask? You're the only one with a semi-stable relationship where neither of you are likely to try to kill each other mid-screw," Jensen said, digging his underwear free again, wondering if he should even call it underwear when it wasn't meant to stay underneath anything for that long. "Help me, Poochi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope."

"First off, my relationship is _rock solid_. Second, so help me, if you do that thing with your ass once more, I will pull this van over and staple your hands to the armrests. And third ... you have a point," Pooch conceded. "And never call me that again. I am Han Pooch, if I'm anything."

"Do you think they actually smack each other around in the middle of sex? Like a kinky thing? Or do they just fight and then work it off with the fucking?" Jensen wondered, momentarily sidetracked. Clay was his superior officer (in a former life), and also just _Clay_ , so Jensen had never particularly looked at him in a specifically lust-filled way. But Clay was undeniably good looking, and he and Aisha were probably pretty hot together, and Jensen had a healthy curiosity and just enough sense to not ask either of them directly.

"I refuse to have more than one conversation about sex with you at a time," Pooch told him. "So pick which one carefully."

Fine. "So Cougar. I was practicing my sweet moves and he was watching and I wasn't getting the vibe that he was silently laughing and pointing. But inter-unit things are frowned on when you're not Clay and we're supposed to pretend we don't know about that anyway. And have you seen Cougar with women? It's like he's a picnic and they're a little starving colony of horny ants." And Cougar was his friend. Jensen's friend number was actually limited to two and a sister, these days. Well, three, maybe. He never could tell with Aisha. He didn't want to lose him.

"What exactly do horny ants look like? How could you even tell they were horny?" Pooch asked. Jensen opened his mouth and Pooch stopped him. "Never mind, pretend I didn't ask. Because you are a weird, twitchy man and you would probably know the answer. But what the hell are you actually asking, Jensen? If you should do something about it, or if you think he's swinging your way, or do you just want to talk and I don't have to listen or answer in any way? That's my favorite option, by the way."

Jensen ignored the addendum. "If I were to possibly ask if he might be into dudes, what would your hypothetical response be?"

"My hypothetical response is to ante up and ask him yourself because I am not _Dear Abby_ for the sexually confused and incompetent." Pooch told him. But he stopped and then sighed. "He let you wear his damn hat, Jake."

Jensen blinked. "What?"

"He let you wear his hat," Pooch repeated. Jensen thought about it, and then it came to him. That party in Brazil, when Cougar had been half covered in attractive aspiring models and Jensen had managed to send three women rapidly away to the bathroom from whence they never returned. He'd gotten extremely drunk on cheap vodka and then stolen Cougar's hat and joked about taking his mojo. He vaguely remembered Cougar taking it back at some point, and someone helping him to his room.

Pooch must have looked at him since he seemed to know when Jensen remembered. "Yeah," Pooch said. "You're kind of an idiot."

"I didn't know! Women everywhere! He only says two words a year! He takes all my money whenever we play cards!" Jensen protested.

"Look, just talk to him, and then never talk to me about it again," Pooch told him. "Or talk at him. Maybe he'll write it down if he's not that into you."

"But he's that into me. Right?" Jensen persisted.

"You are a sad excuse for a man," Pooch told him, jerking the van to a stop with unnecessary roughness. Jensen thought he should be red carded. "Go. Try to fake being sexy for ten minutes."

"I am unfathomably sexy. They will be throwing panties on stage," Jensen argued, unfastening his seat belt and trying to get out without thong slippage and failing miserably.

"Or hats," Pooch said. 

Jensen thought about that, and he must have gone a little glassy eyed because Pooch wadded up a napkin and threw it at his head. Jensen ducked away a second too late and hurried for the door, calling over his shoulder. "I'm telling Jolene you went inside a strip joint!"  
~~

There were about a million things Jensen had forgotten about dancing on stage. For one, the floor was always just a little damp from someone else's sweat, and it was gross. Second, the lights were nine thousand degrees and made him feel like he was a hot dog, turning on a spit until his skin was crackling and juicy. (He might have forgotten to eat today and was suddenly starving.) Third, you couldn't actually see most of the audience. He knew where the bridal party was because they were right off the stage and really, really loud. He knew where Clay was because Clay was at the door and doors were usually fixed locations. Aisha he'd caught a glimpse of from backstage and she was somehow about three chairs down from the bride, looking entirely comfortable as if she'd actually been invited. He knew where Kimmie was because he'd seen her get up and head for the bar in the back as soon as he was announced.

And he knew where Cougar was because Cougar was sitting directly off the stage, long legs sprawled and hat sitting on the table in deference to the women behind him. Jensen had caught a glimpse of Kimmie talking to him, before he went on, and had worked himself into a cycle of continual fear over what else she might have blurted out, because Jake's history was full of the embarrassing and bizarre.

But now he was on stage, slow-cooking under the lights and he couldn't think about any of that because Cougar was _watching him_. They had all spent a lot of time together in impossibly tight quarters and knew intimate details of their lives such as bowel regularity and food allergies and how those two things could tie together, amongst many, many other things. They'd also all heard each other get laid at various points, or seen one another trying to get laid. Cougar had never had to try that hard. Women loved him. But Jensen had seen him look at women he'd been into before. He'd seen how it made his eyes soft and dark and his lashes droop and his back slouch in some impossible to explain way that made his whole body look lean and predatory.

That was how he was looking at Jensen right this freaking minute, and Jensen's brain wanted to analyze every minute of the last eight years to try to figure out if he'd ever looked at Jake that way, but Jake had missed it. He focused on just making Cougar keep looking like that, and he danced.

It was shockingly easy to throw himself into it. The bridal party was into it - Jensen could hear - and he threw a look their way, gyrated his hips toward them and did his damn job because he was a _professional_ (not a professional at this actual profession, but close enough), but Jensen didn't kid himself. He was dancing for Cougar.

The song wound down and the lights dimmed just enough that Jensen could spot Aisha, whooping and hollering with the rest of the party, and Clay looking decidedly uncomfortable by the door. The manager was waving him off the stage and toward the bridal party, many of whom were holding bills in hand. Jensen almost fell on the stairs, because his luck only went so far and they were hard to see, but stayed upright and headed for the bride, who was smiling and wearing a veil over her bright red hair. He gave Cougar a last look and caught him licking his lips. Jensen's dick threatened to stand right up out of its ridiculous thong wrapping and Jensen just really hoped that was a selling point for the waiting bride as he swayed his way up to her.

She beamed, laughing, and Aisha grinned, leaning in close and saying something about how her husband would have to work to live up to the competition, somehow slipping in her soon-to-be-brother-in-law's name to start to lead toward the right questions as the bride giggled and tucked a twenty in Jensen's thong. It was all going according to plan.

Naturally, that's when guys with machine guns burst through the door. _Of course_ it was.

Instinct kicked in as soon as there were guns in play. Aisha was on her feet almost before the door was fully open, producing a pistol from god knows where. Jensen took a few more seconds, heart stopping in his chest because his sister was somewhere near those guns. He saw Cougar though, out of his seat just as quickly as Aisha and moving toward the bar, and Kim.

Jensen could trust Cougar to take care of his sister, and he saw where the gunmen were headed and leapt into action. Apparently, they'd decided to pump her for information too, but they were going to be a lot less polite and naked about it. Jensen grabbed for the bride, hoisting her over his shoulder and then diving for the stage, rolling her beneath it and out of the way and then grabbing for the gun Clay had told him was taped there.

People were screaming and Jensen started yelling and pushing people down and out of the line of fire. Clay and Aisha weren't shooting, because they didn't want to kill a bunch of innocent people who'd just wanted to see hot guys flash their goods. But the party crashers didn't care. They hadn't expected any opposition though, and there was only six of them.

Cougar had Kim behind the bar and was waving a few others to the same place before he straightened, took careful aim, and took out the head of the shooter furthest from him. Clay inelegantly tackled another one, bashing his head into a chair leg until he slumped and went still. Aisha's shot took out a third and Jensen kicked over a table near her. She dodged behind it and then leaned out for another shot. Jensen took a fourth and the last two fell back.

Aisha launched out from behind the table like a tigress, taking out the legs of the nearest man and Clay come up off the floor for the other one.

It was fast and it was violent and it took Jake about thirty seconds after it was over to realize he'd just been in a firefight while wearing a tiny thong and fancy wrist cuffs. It took him about that long to remember that the strip joint was about three minutes from the nearest police station, too, since there were thirty people around with cell phones out to call 911 and the sirens were already wailing their way here.

People were standing, still screaming and blocking the path between Jensen and Aisha and Clay, but Cougar was abruptly at his arm, pulling him along toward the back door. "We go or we're made," he said into Jake's ear.

"Kim-"

"She's fine," Cougar said.

Jensen found himself pushed out the back door and running full tilt down an alley, Cougar on the comms arranging pick up with Pooch while Jensen tried to keep his junk from flapping in the breeze. It didn't really work. This was officially the worst possible getaway he'd ever had, including the one where they'd all been shot. There was no dignity in running in stripper gear.  
~~

Jensen ended up huddled next to a dumpster, waiting for Pooch to lose a cop tail and then pick them up. Cougar gave him his jacket and Jensen pulled it tight and tried not to think about how it reminded him just how turned on he'd been on stage, and how fight adrenaline really didn't _help_ that much because the only thing that really kept Jensen from being turned on by the rush of a fight was when he was actually shot in the middle of it. He just usually worked it out via talking and hacking, and the others tuned him out until he was wound down.

Jensen wasn't on active comms, but Cougar kept him updated. It was unreasonably cold for being in Miami and Jensen was freezing, even in the jacket. Cougar ended up with an arm around him. It did wonders for warming up parts of Jensen, anyway. Cougar let go as soon as the van came into sight, and Jensen practically dove into the van. He was immediately bitter that there were no spare pants hidden inside.

Pooch complained non-stop on the brief drive back about people muscling in on their covert ops and blowing the whole thing. He was mid-rant when he dropped them at the safehouse, and then pulled right back out to go for Clay and Aisha. From the look on Cougar's face, Jensen guessed Pooch's irate rambling was still happening over the comms. Clay and Aisha apparently had somehow gotten themselves in with the bride and were back at her place, according to Pooch, pre-exit. Jensen assumed that meant they'd gotten the intel, which made this whole operation _pointless_ on his part, because they hadn't even needed to be plied by Jensen's abs and ass.

But he was still humming with energy and he and Cougar were, impossibly, alone. And not in danger. Or not in any more danger than usual.

Jensen still had Cougar's jacket around his shoulders and Cougar was watching the door stiffly as Pooch pulled away. Jensen was pretty sure Cougar was trying _not_ to look at him, and that was kind of insulting for a guy who'd just had his arms wrapped around him. (Admittedly for teeth-chattering reasons instead of the fun kind, but still. Rude.) It was mixed signals and Jensen was demonstrably bad with signals that came from humans, and interpreting them in ways anyone else would consider normal.

But Cougar had licked his lips. And they were alone. Jensen was a man of courage. Or he was going to be a man of courage right now, at least.

Any minute now.

He was going to do something.

He really was.

It would help if Cougar would look at him, or have an obvious hard-on or something.

"Dammit." Jensen took a deep breath, and then dropped the jacket. "Hey ... Coug?" Belatedly he pulled out his ear piece and stuffed it in the pocket.

Cougar looked over. He was too tense for his eyes to be all soft, _fuck me_ liquid, but he looked, and he cocked an eyebrow. Jensen manned up, took his balls in his hands (figuratively speaking, otherwise that would be weird), and stepped up. "Please don't shoot me," he mumbled, and then he leaned in and kissed Cougar.

It was rushed and inelegant and that didn't actually matter because Cougar made a sound like he'd been punched, but it was a happy punch, somehow, and then long arms were back around Jensen. And, _wow_ hands were grabbing his ass. Cougar wasted no time and Jensen was grateful to all existing or fictional deities for that, because it made his brain shut down and stop worrying and just let him enjoy the sudden handsy-ness and the tongue in his mouth.

Cougar was a good kisser, once the sudden lunge of surprise was past. Which wasn't at all surprising. He was also a _frequent_ kisser, which kind of was surprising but _great_? His mouth was all over Jensen's and he took his time about it, while Jensen was frantically trying to steer them toward the bed and shove off Cougar's shirt and find his belt without looking. Even when they got to the bed, Cougar didn't let him go, just held on to him, kissing until Jake was dizzy enough with it that he might actually have fallen onto the bed if Cougar hadn't finally let him go and pushed him down onto it. He reached for his own earpiece, and switched it deliberately off.

Cougar stripped out of his clothes, efficient and matter of fact. Jake ogled him long enough that he almost forgot he still had any clothing on and then started when he remembered, reaching down to push the thong down, but Cougar caught his hands. "Leave it."

"OhfuckJesus," Jensen said. "Look at you. I've known you for how long? Why haven't we already been doing this? _Look at you_. Come here. Seriously, I want to-"

Cougar kissed him again and Jensen was halted before he could start giving verbal admiration to Cougar's dick, which was long and thick and cut and somehow just as attractive as the rest of him, which was both fitting and unfair to other men. It was probably a good thing, since Jensen's adjectives mid-sex were usually more creative than flattering. "You were dancing for me," Cougar said, like it was a fact.

Which it was, so that was okay. "Yeah," Jake breathed. "You licked your lips," he added dumbly.

"I wanted to lick other things," Cougar answered. And then demonstrated.

Cougar had talented hands. They could aim and shoot and kill things and throw knives and palm cards so he could cheat wildly, even if Jensen had never caught him. But his _mouth_. His mouth might actually be a superpower, Jensen thought dimly. Cougar kissed his way down Jensen's chest and then sucked him down to the root, all pressure and tongue and suction. Jensen babbled and had no idea what he was saying. There might have been marriage proposals or offers of firstborn sons in there for all he knew.

He looked down, no hat in the way (Jensen dimly tried to remember to tell Cougar he wanted to leave it on sometime, too). Cougar had pushed the thong aside just enough that it was out of the way. His dark hair was spread across Jensen's thighs and his lips were wrapped around him, eyes shut like he was enjoying it and Jensen groaned a warning.

And Cougar _stopped_. Jensen felt a noise that was probably what a dying swan sounded like honk out of his throat in protest. Cougar just flashed a smile that was all teeth and promise. "Wait," he said. 

He slid off the bed, and Jensen's head spun as he stared in blank admiration at Cougar's ass (narrow and flat but somehow perfect) as he walked over to dig through a bag. He came back then, foil wrapped condom, a worn towel, and lube in hand and Jensen swallowed. "Always be prepared?" he joked.

"It's Pooch's," Cougar said, deadpan, and Jensen took a second to recognize it for a joke before he laughed. Cougar grinned back and straddled Jensen's thighs. He ripped open the condom and rolled it onto Jensen's dick, then squeezed lube onto his fingers.

Jensen's brain short circuited as Cougar wrapped one hand around him, stroking -- careful of the rubber -- and reached the other one back, pressing fingers into himself. No one should be that limber, but it was _insanely hot_ and Jensen mentally derided the entire existing porn industry because they'd never managed to pull of anything remotely as sexual as Cougar, sitting on his lap fingering himself open for Jensen's dick. (Which really hadn't been how Jensen expected it to go, but he wasn't anywhere close to complaining. He was versatile and extremely interested in anything that had to do with Cougar naked and on top of him.)

"God. Okay, I wish I could film that. Not in a pervy way. I mean yes, absolutely in a pervy way, but like, mental film so I could play it back and jerk off to it in my head for the rest of my life. I could -- fuck, Coug, let me help," Jensen said, mouth moving with him still only half aware of words emerging from his mouth. He fumbled the lube but managed, pushing himself up with his other hand and reaching around.

Cougar let go of his dick and pushed him firmly back to the bed. "Next time," he said.

Jensen decided the bossiness was hot, unsurprisingly, and even if he hadn't, he would be too busy being happy about the fact that there would apparently be a next time to have worried about it. Cougar leaned over him and kissed him again, like a reward. (Jake had always responded very well to a reward based system.)

He wrapped slick fingers around Cougar's cock instead, and that much was apparently allowed, since Cougar just groaned and twisted further, fingers pressing deeper and faster inside himself while Jensen watched and jerked him off. Cougar caught his hand finally, stopping him while Cougar's body did an interesting little shudder. He pulled his fingers free, wiping them on the towel that Jensen was too turned on to mock him for being prepared enough to bring, and then moved.

Cougar lifted up and then settled slowly down onto Jensen's dick. Jensen bit his lip and dug his fingers into the scratchy bedspread and thought about grannies, and sad ASPCA commercial puppies, and anything but the tight, slick heat of Cougar wrapping around his cock, or the breathless look of pained hunger on Cougar's face while he sank down, just so he wouldn't embarrass himself by coming as soon as he was inside.

Cougar huffed a breath when he was fully seated, clenching around him, and Jensen gasped out a string of unlikely curse words that earned a hissed sort of laugh from Cougar. He lifted up and pulled at Cougar at the same time. Cougar met him half way, kissing messy and breathless before Cougar started to move. The kisses had been slow and lingering -- at least at first -- but Cougar fucked like he meant business. He rode Jensen's cock, lifting up and crashing down hard and fast.

Jensen's head reeled and he wrapped his hand back around Cougar, stroking him off, kissing whenever Cougar stopped long enough to let him. It was dizzying and intense and it might actually be terrifying how good it was, when Jensen came down later and could think about it. Now it was just _perfect_ , and Jensen wanted it to last forever.

His body had other ideas though, since a last rise and fall of Cougar's hips and Jensen was gone, gasping out something frantic and unintelligible.

Cougar rode him through it, eyes on Jensen's face. Jensen watched, hazy and fucked out as Cougar covered Jake's hand with his own, moving both of their hands faster on Cougar's dick until Cougar caught up, painting Jensen's chest and screwing his eyes shut.

Cougar sagged into Jensen once he was finished, panting and shaking a little. It was endearing in some way Jensen was unwilling to actually consider right now, and he just ran his hand along Cougar's back until they both came down enough for Cougar to roll off of him. 

Jensen tied off the condom and tossed it in the vague direction of the trash can nearby. He couldn't be fucked to look and see if it made it in. He tried to straighten his legs and the lopsided thong dug into a thigh. "Can I take this off now?" he asked, scratchy voiced.

Cougar chuckled, low and inexpressibly, unfairly sexy. He reached to push it lower on Jensen's legs and then sat up enough to pull it off entirely and toss it onto the end of the bed when Jensen shimmied out of it. Cougar wiped off Jensen's chest and hand and then stretched back out alongside him, not quite cuddling but close enough to be touching and with one arm draped over Jensen's chest.

It was close enough, Jensen decided, and rolled in the last spare inch or so to turn it into actual canoodling. He was a cuddler, so sue him. He shut his eyes. "I'm gonna nap now. I've had a busy day. I work hard for the money, Coug. So hard for it, honey."

He could _feel_ Cougar's eyes rolling, but didn't open his own to see. "Sleep," Cougar told him, affection in the tone.

Jensen grinned and let himself do just that.  
~~

Jensen came awake to the familiar sound of Aisha stomping in to the room, half shouting at Clay. Jensen was a career soldier who came awake at the drop of a hat when he had to, but his brain recognized _safe and familiar_ well enough that it didn't bother to jolt him for people who were (probably) not going to kill him.

The sounds came to an abrupt halt though, and Jensen became aware of the fact that he was naked, not actually covered by much of anything save a half-hearted attempt to tug a sheet over himself at some point, and that he hadn't gone to bed alone.

He bolted upright to see Cougar sitting on the edge of the bed, half dressed and looking tousled and relaxed. And Aisha, Clay, and Pooch standing in doorway, staring. "Everyone liking the view?" Jensen asked. They'd already gotten a look, so he didn't bother to rush to find pants. Cougar, however, held out a pair of sweats he must have gotten out of Jake's bag for him. Jensen grinned at him and pulled them on, then stood, stretching. He still felt like he was wrecked, since it'd been like two hours of sleep tops judging by the light creeping in past the boarded window, or the lack thereof. But he felt _good_. 

Clay recovered first, clearing his throat. "We got to the brother, and he had location. I got in touch with some old friends, they're getting the whole family into protection. We kick out tomorrow for his cabin in Georgia."

"You got it? You didn't even _need_ me to go up there and shake my groove thang. This was just straight up exploitation, Clay," Jensen complained.

Clay looked past him to Cougar. "Yeah. You look exploited," he said, deadpan.

Jensen looked back too, and saw Cougar leaning back, fingers running along the thong that was still draped over the edge of the bed. Jensen's breath caught, and he looked back at Clay. "I may possibly forgive you," he allowed. "Also, I have a lunch date with my sister, so our eternal vengeance is going to have to hold for like, half a day."

"About that -- she's got words for you now that you've got your phone back," Aisha said.

"I probably should have pulled out the spare and texted her," Jensen realized. "There were some heavy distractions happening though."

"Aisha said she'd update her," Cougar said. Jensen turned and grinned at him, fully aware of the stupid delight in his expression and ignoring the gagging sound coming from Pooch.

Clay snorted. "Go shower, soldier."

Aisha strolled past him, leaning in to murmur something into Cougar's ear, making him grin. Jensen narrowed his eyes at her and Aisha smiled. "I asked him if he wanted to see the video of your college years."

Oh. Shit. "You DID know? So this whole thing was what?"

Aisha shrugged. "Fun for me, mostly."

"There are so many things wrong with you," Jensen grumbled.

Aisha winked and Pooch started to list off rules that all parties in the room other than him should obey when it came to appropriate times for PDA (all of them involving him not being in the room). Jensen ignored him and caught Cougar by the wrist, tugging him toward the bathroom. Clay told him to shower. He didn't say Jensen had to shower _alone_.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I googled and felt like I should share, the mentioned outfits actually exist. [Penguin](http://www.mystrippercloset.com/products/Elegant-Moments-Lingerie-Mens-Stripper-Penguin-Pouch-V9720.html), [alligator](http://www.mystrippercloset.com/products/Elegant-Moments-Lingerie-Sexy-Mens-Stripper-Clothes-Alligator-Pouch-%234674.html), [devil](http://www.mystrippercloset.com/products/Elegant-Moments-Lingerie-Devils-Mens-Pouch-%234007.html), [Union Jack](http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/310823028961?lpid=82), [Old Glory](http://www.mystrippercloset.com/products/Body-Language-Fashions-Mens-Lycra-USA-Flag-Brazilian-Back-%23605%7B47%7DUS.html), [elephant](http://www.mystrippercloset.com/products/Elegant-Moments-Lingerie-Devils-Mens-Pouch-%234007.html>devil</a>,%20and%20<a%20href=). [This is the leather Jensen was worried about chafing and pinching](http://www.mystrippercloset.com/products/Allure-Leather-Mens-Sexy-Stripper-Leather-Half-Harness-29%252d102.html), and [this](http://www.mystrippercloset.com/products/Raveware-Lingerie-Mens-Tuxedo-Thong-Center-Bow-Wrist-Cuffs-Neck-Collar-.html) is what he actually wears. I particularly enjoy the penguin.


End file.
